Starlight
by bkwrmnlvnit
Summary: Spoilers through 04x09. After the prison falls, Daryl and Beth share a night under the stars. Oneshot.


**Howdy, y'all!**

**Well, as usual, my attempts at writing romance fell through so I came back to my eternal backup plan and favorite genre/focus point, platonic love. I'm still pretty new to this fandom, and admittedly, I haven't seen much of Daryl and Beth interacting yet outside of what I've run into in music videos, and what friends have spoiled for me by showing clips. However, when I went to write a platonic love story, this one came instantly to mind and...Well. That was basically that. I hope I was able to get the relationships at least believable, though. If you get a chance or enjoy the story, please feel free to let me know in a review or whatever if you can, but either way, hope y'all enjoy the story! **

As another biting breeze cut quietly through the night and caused the fire to flicker, Beth leaned back against a nearby log, tugging her coat tighter to herself and suppressing the urge to shiver.

It was cold tonight, colder than it had been in days, and clearer too. The moon cast shadows across the ground, and the sky was a brilliant splatter-paint canvas of so many stars they seemed to overtake the night itself. Looking silently upwards, Beth thought with a sort of bittersweet smile that back on the farm back before everything had happened, this was exactly the kind of night that everyone had always loved. If it was back then, if it was _before, _she knew that by now Patricia would have already pulled out a bunch of blankets, that everyone would have laid them on the sprawling lawn in front of the farmhouse, sitting on them and watching as the sun dipped below the horizon in a brilliant blaze of lights.

In the dimming glow, Daddy would have allowed the girls to build a campfire on the lawn if they were careful – and they always were – so that they could roast marshmallows to make s'mores on the backyard campout. Otis and Patricia would share a blanket and as the night took over for the day and the stars began to rise, he would pull out his guitar and play, sometimes for hours, and the girls would sing quietly along until he put it away for the evening and they all laid back, letting the story telling begin.

Usually, it was about the past, stories of Beth and Maggie's childhood, or various fishing trips, or funny anecdotes and 'did-I-ever-tell-you-abouts' when the days gone by were pulled back into the present. Beth had always hung onto every word as they'd all watched the stars together, listening intently as the story tellers slowly silenced, falling asleep one by one until it was only her and Maggie, still awake and swapping whispers in the darkness under a sky so spattered with white that it was almost incomprehensible…

Across from her, Daryl shifted, poking at the small fire they had burning in an attempt to cook a squirrel he had caught earlier in the day without catching too much unwanted attention. With a soft sigh of disappointment, Beth returned to the present as the past slipped away again, the now-distant memory replaced by the quiet crackle of flames and the quiet rhythm of their breath. For a few moments, she almost wanted to frown and be upset, but she had long since learned that there wasn't much point in that. Instead, she tilted her head back to gaze at the inky and glittering tarp of sky stretched overhead.

"What'cha lookin' at?" Daryl asked from the other side of the fire, casting a quick glance upwards as he balanced his crossbow on his knee.

"The stars," Beth admitted. "There's so many of them. Don't you think they're beautiful?"

Daryl shrugged. "They're alright. Never really give much thought to 'em."

"I do," Beth murmured. "I love watching them. On the farm, you could always see them really clearly, and in the summers, we'd sometimes have campouts with the whole family. It was fun, you know? Peaceful. Maggie and I would always be the last ones still awake because we spent the whole night whisperin' to each other about everything." Her voice trailed off as she spoke, the end of her sentence fading into the silent grip of reality.

_Maggie, _she thought. Outside of Glenn, she was the only family Beth had left to hope for. Mom, Arnold, Shawn, they'd all become walkers and had been killed after the group from Atlanta had shown up at the farm. The Governor had killed Daddy some time ago, though she hadn't been able to make herself keep track of the exact number of days. Even among those friends she'd lived with for years, those she'd loved, none of them could be hoped for. Patricia, Otis, Jimmy, Zach, they were all dead. The undead had killed every one of them.

The group from the prison was the only family left she had to hope for. Glenn, Maggie, Rick…None of them had been seen since the prison's fall, but she hadn't found bodies yet either. It wasn't much of a hope, but it was one she clung to in fear that losing it might mean losing faith in everything again. She had to keep believing they were alive until she couldn't. It was a matter of dedication, a matter of survival. She had to.

"Me an' Merle never really did anythin' like that," she heard Daryl say, surprising her by breaking the silence. "We went huntin' every once in a while, but mos' the time he was off in juvie or I was off tryin' to be normal. Even when we were together, we never thought too much of it."

"You mean you never looked at the stars? Ever?" Across the fire, their eyes met for a brief second before he shrugged and looked away.

"I looked at 'em," he said, "jus' didn't think 'bout 'em. They're good for navigation, not much else."

Beth frowned, looking at her hands and idly twitching her fingers for a moment. "But…don't you think they're beautiful? I mean, they just make you feel so…small."

Across the fire, Daryl gave another shrug. "Can't say as though I've ever really needed to feel small. An' if I did, I definitely didn't need no star to help." The silence that followed rang of the implications of his statement, and for a moment, she said nothing, only watched him over the low flames with an attempt at a comforting smile. She'd always guessed – known, really – that he'd been through hell long before the world had ended, but she'd never pressed for information. Back at the beginning, when he'd worn his past like battle armor, it had been a matter of self-preservation that silenced all questions. Now that his armor had started to fall away, it was just a matter of respect. If he wanted to talk, he'd tell her.

After several minutes showed that now was not the time he felt like sharing, she spoke again, filling the silence for the sake of keeping their thoughts away. "I just…have to wonder sometimes, you know? If someone, some_thing_ is out there, watching us… What would they think?"

Daryl snorted. "I reckon they wouldn't think too much of us now. We're all either killers or dead."

"I don't think so," Beth disagreed. "There's still good people out there." Her mind turned back to the group, to the citizens of Woodbury, most of them who had just been innocents looking for a way to get back to life as it was. They'd all been good people, and some of them had to have made it, at least a few. They had to.

"Any good people out there long since disappeared," Daryl replied grimly, removing the now cooked squirrel from over the flames. "They're all a buncha walkers now, tryin' to kill us until we kill 'em first. There ain't no good people out there anymore. Not alive."

"There has to be," Beth repeated, shaking her head and watching him. "There has to be. Otherwise, what is all worth? If there's nothing out there and no point, what are we fighting for?"

For the first time in several minutes, the hunter paused for a moment to meet her eyes. "I dunno," he said. "Whatever it is though, must be pretty damn powerful if it keeps anyone goin' through all this."

As he returned to the squirrel, Beth gave a small half-smile. "Yeah," she agreed, voice quiet. Her eyes darted back to the sky overhead, to the stars. _Maggie, Glenn, Rick, the others…Are they looking at the sky too? Are they still out there, keeping on going? _The image of her sister's face glowed in her mind, accompanied by the memory of all the others, the dead and the living alike. They had to be out there, somewhere, still looking. They couldn't all be gone. Even for a world as cruel as this one, that couldn't be fair.

"Do you think we're ever gonna find them again?" she asked after a while.

Grunting, Daryl handed her a part of squirrel. "I dunno," he said. "Do you?"

Beth paused, biting her lip for a moment in hesitation. Her eyes flitted up to the stars again. "I…I'd like to," she managed eventually. "I hope so."

Daryl's gaze met hers again, and for a few short moments, it stayed there. "Me too," he said.


End file.
